[ticker-dev] Re: Elvin presence spec draft - request for comments

[Bill Segall]

Yes!

Right now we're using our "user" name in a local setting to indicate where
we are and half the information content is only applicable in the local
setting. Worse still the "name" half is only locally unique. We really need
to separate somehow the idea of "name": (our simple local label), identity
(uniqueness), and locality ... and others?.

"name" seems to be a display thing. identity could be what you look for in
a buddy list, while locality is really part of the awareness
atributes. Locality is probably important as display information depending
on context (perhaps where co-located people really care?).

It's difficult to keep the interfaces simple and maintain separation for
these but I think Klaus is already demonstrating a lack of scalablity in
what we're currently doing. Buddy lists seem to be what a lot of the
mainstream internet chat applications do.

I've been assuming IMPP doesn't help us but I've really only looked at the
IM and not the PP :-) Is it worth looking at? Has anyone else done this
before?

Bill.